Are Pain Polymorphisms Associated with the Risk and Phenotype of Post-COVID Pain in Previously Hospitalized COVID-19 Survivors?

Genes (Basel). 2022 Jul 26;13(8):1336. doi: 10.3390/genes13081336.

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the association of different, selected pain polymorphisms with the presence of de novo long-COVID pain symptoms and to analyze the association between these polymorphisms with clinical, sensory-related, cognitive and psychological variables in COVID-19 survivors. Methods: Two hundred and ninety-three (n = 293, 49.5% female, mean age: 55.6 ± 12.9 years) previously hospitalized COVID-19 survivors participated. Three genotypes of the following single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were obtained from non-stimulated saliva: OPRM1 (rs1799971), COMT (rs4680), BDNF (rs6265), and HTR1B (rs6296) by polymerase chain reactions in all participants. Further, clinical (intensity/duration of pain), sensory-related (sensitization-associated symptoms, neuropathic pain features), psychological (anxiety or depressive levels, sleep quality), and cognitive (catastrophizing, kinesiophobia) variables were collected in those COVID-19 survivors suffering from post-COVID pain. Analyses were carried out to associate clinical features with genotype. Results: Participants were assessed 17.8 ± 5.2 months after hospitalization. One hundred and seventeen (39.9%) experienced post-COVID pain (particularly of musculoskeletal origin). The distributions of the genotype variants of any SNP were not significantly different between COVID-19 survivors with and without long-term post-COVID pain (all, p > 0.178). No differences in sensitization-associated symptoms, neuropathic pain features, catastrophizing, kinesiophobia levels, anxiety and depressive levels or sleep quality according to the genotype variant in any SNPs were found. No effect of gender was identified. Conclusion: The four SNPs generally associated with pain did not appear to predispose to the development of de novo long-COVID pain symptoms in previously hospitalized COVID-19 survivors. The SNPs were not involved in the phenotypic features of post-COVID pain either.

Keywords: COVID-19; pain; post-COVID; risk; single nucleotide polymorphism.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Aged
  • COVID-19* / complications
  • COVID-19* / genetics
  • Female
  • Hospitalization
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Neuralgia* / genetics
  • Neuralgia* / virology
  • Phenotype
  • Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide
  • Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome
  • Survivors

Grants and funding

The project was supported by a grant from the Novo Nordisk Foundation 0067235 (Denmark) and by a grant associated to the Fondo Europeo De Desarrollo Regional–Recursos REACT-UE del Programa Operativo de Madrid 2014–2020, en la línea de actuación de proyectos de I + D + i en materia de respuesta a COVID-19 (LONG-COVID-EXP-CM). Neither sponsor had a role in the design, collection, management, analysis, or interpretation of the data, draft, review, or approval of the manuscript or its content. The authors were responsible for the decision to submit the manuscript for publication, and the sponsors did not participate in this decision.